For those with vegetable and fruits in their garden, what do you do with the excess harvest? We usually give them away to neighbors in need and sometimes to relatives. But as per the advice of a colleague, what we do now with the excess harvest is to preserve it. Red pepper can be added to the bottle of vinegar. It will last long and will give the vinegar a hot flavor. Papaya, carrots and onions can be pickled in a simple preparation of vinegar, garlic and sugar. Tomatoes which fruit heavily all at the same time is our challenge. We don’t know how to preserve it.
All vegetables can be pickled. Only unripe papaya can be pickled but ripe papaya being pickled will be gross and disgusting. Dehydrating vegetables and turning them into chips is also trendy these days.
You can make sauce out of tomatoes and there are several recipe you can look for on the Net. My problem is fruits. I get a bumper all the time. After distributing them to neigbours, family and friends - not worth really as I never get a thank you from them (lol) I make fruit juices and also dump them in my compost pit.
You could freeze some of the vegetables also,but make sure you blanch them before you put them in the freezer-and then put them in some airtight freezer bags. Also you could use the canning process and pack them in glass jars and seal them with lids to ensure that they are safe from bacteria growth, which is quite popular with gardeners as well. You might even want to add them to your compost pile and this will add a lot of nutrients to your soil for next years garden also.
